Jailbreak!
by Death By Segway Scooter
Summary: Swindle gets an offer he can't refuse...


**Legal Schtick:** I don't own Transformers, just write about 'em. Hasbro/Takara are the guys that actually own 'em. Go talk to them.

**Warnings:** Uhm...there's slightly political pop-culture references in here. I'm assuming I have to warn about that now.

**Jailbreak!**

The day was just like any other day. Or at least, it started that way...

Swindle awoke from his recharge period early that morning and, after checking to make sure his permanently-disgruntled superiors was nowhere in sight, he went on to do what he loved the most: going through his goods and overpricing them! It was his favorite pastime besides looking at other people's goods and figuring out the best way to swipe it from them.

He took a quick look at his "goods" which mainly consisted of leftover junk he found laying around any old place. He picked up a tiny piece of metal shaped like a cresent. He found it laying around in the sands on some random desert planet a few days ago. From its bladed edges, he figured it was supposed to be some kind of weapon...maybe a boomerang-like weapon? Upon scanning the object, he found that it was supposed to laser emitters inside. However, its circuits were fried; the thing didn't work. That's probably why it was discarded in the fist place. But did anybody need to know it was a broken laser boomerang? Nope. If he sold it as a brand new laser boomerang, it'd be perfectly fine.

Better yet! With a little yellow paint, he could make many a shiny cred by selling it as a _gold boomerang!_ Nobody needed to know it was really a broken curved piece of tin left to rust in the sand.

Just as Swindle was pondering the possibility of painting it a silver-white instead and selling it at a premium as a _platinum_ boomerang, his commlink buzzed. He grunted in dismay. And _just_ when he was coming up with the deal of the century!

"Swindle here," he said into his commlink, hiding his disappointment just in case it was one of his higher-ups wanting him to do something.

"Is this the Decepticon known as Swindle?"

The jeep stared at his commlink blankly. This was not the raspy, sore-throated voice of Megatron, the screechy voice of Starscream, or the voice of Onslaught bantering at him. This was a quiet, cold, emotionless female voice. And since there was no metal undertone in the voice, he guessed it belonged to an organic creature.

"Yeah, this's Swindle," he replied. "Who is this?"

"It doesn't matter who I am...," the voice answered. "I'd like to make a deal with you."

"Ohhhh...ya would, wouldja?" the Deception jeep's face brightened. This mystery caller was a customer! "Well, what'cha lookin' for? If it's weapons you're lookin' for, we're just about to get a one-of-a-kind _platinum_ boomerang in stock! Think of it! A throwing weapon that comes right back to ya, and will make ya look very stylish at the same time! You'll be the env-"

"I'm not interested in weapons!" the voice snapped, coldly. "I want to know if you can break someone out of prison."

"Ohhh, a jailbreak!" Swindle said. "Sure, I do those. But ah...what can you do for me?"

"I have plenty of money. I'll pay you as much as you want. Do you accept American currency?"

"Oh, I accept anything, toots. Dollars, credits, gold coins, gold nuggets, um...chicken nuggets..."

"Fine then. I'll outline the plan to you then. Provided you don't call me 'toots' again!"

"Yes...ma'am...," Swindle grumbled, secretly cursing the "customer is always right" rule.

"Very good. I need you to help me get out of getting thrown in jail. I haven't actually been sent to prison yet, but I will be very soon. I have lots of enemies thanks to my financial status, and thus, they tried to frame me for something out of envy. And unfortunately, they won. Now I'm being sent up the proverbial river for something I didn't do. In about two days, I need you to go to..."

---

The prison guards snapped to attention when they heard the klaxons go off. One of the new arrivals had escaped...by somehow destroying the wall of their cell! They didn't know how it happened, but the guards had no time to ask questions. They scrambled all around the correctional facility, trying to find this escapee, as well as making sure none of the other inmates were attempting to escape. A bunch of armed guards riding in jeeps were deployed around the prison's perimeter, just in case the inmate had somehow made it past the outer wall.

The escape was quite a spectacle, especially considering who this inmate _was._ If she tried to escape, the media would have a feeding frenzy, and the facility would put to shame. The guards could just hear the late night talk shows poking fun at them now, probably depicting them as sleeping on the job, or allowing very obvious escape attempts (like the old nail file in the cake) slip by. But on the other hand, this particular inmate had so many enemies, that for all they knew this might have been a _kidnapping_ instead! Thusly, this might be just a little bit more than damage control...

But they were in such a panic, and too focused on finding a woman. A jeep with no driver completely slipped past them.

Swindle drove a few miles away from the prison before stopping. "Okay...you can come out now," he said to seemingly no one in particular.

A middle aged blonde woman wearing the bright orange prisoner garb slid out from under one of Swindle's seats and hopped out of his vehicle mode. The Decepticon transformed, reached into subspace, and tossed a few articles of black clothing to the human.

"As an added bonus, here's a cloak to cover up that unsightly prisoner's outfit until ya get a change of clothes," he said. Of course, he oh-so-conveniently forgot to mention he'd charge extra for the clothes.

"Thank you," the woman said in her emotionless, quiet, soft voice. "Black and orange usually only go together during Halloween...but I'm sure they'll do for now." She paused. "I have a friend that lives around here. As soon as I get to their house I can see about getting the money for your 'payment' and setting up a time for you to come pick it up..."

"Remember now...small, unmarked, non-consecutive bills!"

"Right, right. I remember."

Swindle's commlink buzzed. "Ugh...that's probably the boss...probably wants to know where I am," he muttered. He turned back to his human client. "Look...we'll hafta talk about this later, 'cause I really gotta run. You got my commlink number, obviously. Pleasure doin' business with ya."

He paused.

"Oh, and if you ever get in trouble with the cops again, I've got that platinum boomerang in stock now! It should get them offa your tail pretty fast and-"

The jeep was interrupted by Megatron's voice growling over his commlink, "Swindle? SWINDLE! Where the slag are you?! We have a _crisis_ here!"

"Aw, slaggit...eveything's a 'crisis' with them, ain't it?" Swindle grumbled. "Well, I'll see ya later Miss...Miss, um..."

"Stewart," the woman said. "Martha Stewart."

"Uh, yeah! See ya, Miss Stewart! You've got my commlink signal...I'll check back in in a few days about the payment." He paused. "And I _will_ be back...so don't try nuthin' funny."

"Don't worry...I won't," she answered coldly.

And with that, the Decepticon and his client parted ways. He only wished that he had managed to close the deal on his "platinum" boomerang...

Or maybe he should glue some cubic zirconias to it - or better yet, rock candy crystals, since they were much cheaper - and try to make it a "diamond" boomerang! Yes! The deal of the century!

---

**NOTE:** This fic is kinda old and I think it shows. I actually came up with this idea in the spring, when Martha's trial was still going on. But I think it should still be funny, even now since she's about to go to jail, I believe. That is, if you really wanna call this "funny."


End file.
